Third Party & Independents: Archives

David:

Part of diplomacy has always been the use of currency, whether economic, political or geographic in nature. Reading your post makes it seem that this strategy is a new endeavor thought up by the Bush administration.

But you’ve brought up a tough issue, and a relevant one. I didn’t see any alternatives mentioned in your post, though I’ll assume you have thought of different ways to achieve necessary goals.

In any negotiation, you have to give up something in order to receive something. They do not necessarily need to be of equal value, though.

What strategies would you suggest in negotiating with foreign countries? How would you induce a country like Colombia or Afghanistan, for instance, to work with the US?

I don’t think you guys have noticed that George Bush has sent 90% of the US Military into Iraq. I am sure Bush would like nothing better than to have his Freedom Marching Army liberate North Korea and Iran but unfortunately, His Spirit is Willing but His Army isn’t.

Besides. North Korea has the Bomb. Bush only attacks Evil Countries that have no WMD.

Also. Historically, the US prefers countries to have Dictators and Madmen. They supported Suharto, Marcos, Noriega, Saddam Hussien and countless South American Countries. The US only starts calling them oppressive when they get out of line.

Aldous.

Aldous:

I’m curious about the 90% number you used. Many anti-bush people have said that Bush went in to Iraq without sufficient troops, and should have gone in with more. If 90% of our military is currently in Iraq, then how could Bush have sent troops into Iraq in the numbers that people are suggesting?

Secondly, what has happened to our military’s ability to fight wars on two separate fronts? We are currently fighting on only one front (the 10,000+ special forces troops in Afghanistan don’t count as a second front, in reality), but seem to be overextended. What happened to our capabilities? This is a serious question—its not intended to point blame at Clinton, Bush 41/43 etc, but to understand why our military seems so overextended. Anyone have answers?

jbod, my answers don’t mean much. What is necessary is for the President to have answers and for us to determine if they are working in our best interest. As a representative for my daughter’s future earnings in America, I am very concerned that our American government deems it appropriate to dictate taxes to her over decades while deficit spending today in order to send 100’s of billions of dollars overseas in all sorts of ways via the military, trade deficits, the State Dep’t., economic aid, bribery of foreign nations and heads of state, and others.

Optimal use of NATO and the UN would help some, but, those choices are not always made. Bribing Americans to vote via tax cuts for voting makes more sense to me than building a voting infrastructure in Iraq. Nationalizing federal elections and election infrastructure to optimal levels of confidence and trust here makes more sense to me than giving billions upon billions to Pakistan.

It is a matter of priorities for me. I am no isolationist, but, on the other hand, I believe our priorities in the world should reflect the welfare of our own citizens and infrastructure as higher than those of other nations. That is not the case today.

I see where Bush is not likely to include the 1 to 2 trillion dollar hole in the deficits next year in his 2006 budget which is likely to include Soc. Sec. reform privatizing part of the investments. This amounts to deceiving the American public while at the same time sending our dollars overseas. This is not partisan, if Nader or a Dem. were to demonstrate these kind of priorities I would be just as opposed.

I would turn the whole N. Korean issue over surrounding nations. It is in their interest to stop Korea’s proliferation of nukes. And I would use trade to discipline those nations should they fail in their attempts to stop N. Korea’s development and proliferation.

I would announce a 6 month pullout of Iraq, having deposed Hussein and tell the world they need to fill the void and aid Iraqi national unity or suffer the consequences which a civil war in Iraq would wreak upon them. Middle Eastern and many European nations need to learn to accept the consequences of their actions and inactions, and I say let the learning begin with Iraq. In every way I can think of, this single action would benefit Americans. If in the future, Iraq poses yet another threat to the U.S. and its defense, we can always go back.

Given that action, I would put Iran on notice. The day we pull out of Iraq, our military will focus on Iran. Iran stands as a direct threat to our national dependency upon Middle Eastern oil and world economic stability. I would tell other nations in the region that if they want a crack at getting Iran to comply with world security requirements before we deal with the situation militarily, fine. If they fail, we will respond.

This is the kind of tough, responsible, and appropriate prioritization of foreign affair objectives I would like to see in return for my tax dollar. Regretfully, we seem not to have that kind of clarity and transparency of purpose at work in our government, to date.

If 90% of our military is currently in Iraq, then how could Bush have sent troops into Iraq in the numbers that people are suggesting?

I think the point is they shouldn’t have been sent.

Joseph:

Aldous made a point of stating that having 90% of our military in Iraq prevents Bush from invading other countries. This is the loose sort of logic that I’m getting used to from the anti-war groups. They say things like how North Korea is the real problem, insinuating that they would accept the US invading those countries, but not poor innocent Iraq. We all know the howls and protests would be immediate, though, so its basically just a bait and switch argument.

Nonetheless your response in no way answers my questions about the military personnel levels.

David:

I’m having a hard time keeping up with your position. You rail against all the money that is being spent overseas, yet your solution is to remove our forces from Iraq (which would devastate the innocent in Iraq as it did the innocent in Viet Nam), only to suggest that we might have to remobilize against Iraq again. No mention of the massive cost of remobilization.

You rail against the unfairness of the war in Iraq, yet you propose military force against Iran if they do not meet up with “world security requirements”. Of course, no mention of the pre-emptive nature of such a military action, nor of the cost, nor of the lives of soldiers and civilians….all things that you have railed against with regard to Iraq.

I would turn the whole N. Korean issue over to surrounding nations.

So you would “outsource” the responsibility for N. Korea. And it that didn’t work, then what. I prefer a limited engagement by the US along with other countries, meaning that we neither take unilateral action nor do we abdicate responsibility.

Bribing Americans to vote via tax cuts for voting makes more sense to me than building a voting infrastructure in Iraq.

You seem to suggest bribing Americans to do their duty to vote. What happened to freedom of choice? If people don’t want to vote, its no skin of my back. They take themselves out of the process willfully. I disagree with their actions, but it nonetheless is their choice.

David, it looks like the only area we agree is that the deficit has grown too much. The current strategy is that by increasing revenue, we can eat into the deficit. In truth, this will only occur if we curtail spending. There are many ways to do this. The ones you have chosen don’t fit my idea of qualified ideas.

David R. Remer wrote: (see comments)
_____________________________
jbod, my answers don’t mean much. What is necessary is for the President to have answers and for us to determine if they are working in our best interest. As a representative for my daughter’s future earnings in America, I am very concerned that our American government deems it appropriate to dictate taxes to her over decades while deficit spending today in order to send 100’s of billions of dollars overseas in all sorts of ways via the military, trade deficits, the State Dep’t., economic aid, bribery of foreign nations and heads of state, and others.
____Sad, but true. Your daughter’s Social Security, maybe even yours, is gone. Not only is it gone, it’s $8 trillion in the RED. ____

Optimal use of NATO and the UN would help some, but, those choices are not always made. Bribing Americans to vote via tax cuts for voting makes more sense to me than building a voting infrastructure in Iraq. Nationalizing federal elections and election infrastructure to optimal levels of confidence and trust here makes more sense to me than giving billions upon billions to Pakistan. ____Especially, if Pakistan doesn’t do a better job of searching for Usama Bin Laden and other terrorists hiding in Pakistan._____

It is a matter of priorities for me. I am no isolationist, but, on the other hand, I believe our priorities in the world should reflect the welfare of our own citizens and infrastructure as higher than those of other nations. That is not the case today. _____I agree with this. However, war may sometimes be unavoidable. Perhaps war in Iraq was avoidable. Perhaps we should have waited longer to see if the Iraqi people would revolt and oust Saddam and his loyalists. However, the U.S. tried to avoid war against the Nazis and Japan in World War 2, but it was probably unavoidable. ______

I see where Bush is not likely to include the 1 to 2 trillion dollar hole in the deficits next year in his 2006 budget which is likely to include Soc. Sec. reform privatizing part of the investments. ____Social Security and Medicare are a huge PONZI scheme. Those systems are probably doomed and should be discontinued ASAP, because you can never trust government to watch your savings for you.____ This amounts to deceiving the American public while at the same time sending our dollars overseas. This is not partisan, if Nader or a Dem. were to demonstrate these kind of priorities I would be just as opposed.

I would turn the whole N. Korean issue over surrounding nations. It is in their interest to stop Korea’s proliferation of nukes. And I would use trade to discipline those nations should they fail in their attempts to stop N. Korea’s development and proliferation. _____I’m not sure trade issues with N.Korea or Iran would be much incentive, but the U.S. should not do anything yet with N.Korea or Iran. Neither have a relatively recent track-record of attacking their neighboring countries or their own people. Hopefully, there are calmer groups in both countries. China likes N.Korea as an irritant to the U.S., but not even China wants N.Korea to drag them into a nuclear war. Besides, other nations have nukes. The U.S. has nukes. It is inevitable that many other countries will get nukes. It isn’t fair for ourselves to have nukes and forbid others from having them. The whole world would be better off with fewer nukes. Perhaps nations wouldn’t feel the need to have nukes if the United Nations would stand up for the rights of all people, protect nations from aggressors, and stop stealing from the people they’re suppose to be helping (e.g. “Oil for Food”). The world must join to protect all nations and the rights of all people. Otherwise, this planet will destroy itself eventually when an aggressor nation eventually becomes powerful enough and crazy enough to bring about a huge nuclear war that endangers the entire world. We may not be that far from that now. For instance, imagine the magnitude of a nuclear war if it occurred NOW between the U.S. and China+N.Korea+Russia. At any rate, the U.S. shouldn’t do anything yet, unless N.Korea or Iran attack other nations (as did Saddam). We should wait and see if these oppressive governments implode and/or result in civil war. The people in N.Korea are literally starving. Perhaps the people of N.Korea will eventually revolt against their oppressive government. Also, both N.Korea and Iran have huge populations, and will not be easy to deal with in the same manner as Iraq (and success in Iraq is not guaranteed yet).______

I would announce a 6 month pullout of Iraq, ____I think the U.S. now has the responsibility to ensure Iraq can stand on it’s own, but leave ASAP. It’s never a good idea to set time limits on withdrawal, since that sends the wrong messages to the terrorists. _____ having deposed Hussein and tell the world they need to fill the void _____Total chaos would result, and/or terrorists would take over, and Iraq would become a larger terrorist haven than it is now. Or, perhaps Israel ends up nuking Iraq and surrounding countries due to escalating terrorism and chaos. However, one of those may indeed still happen no matter how hard we try to keep it from happening.____ and aid Iraqi national unity or suffer the consequences which a civil war in Iraq would wreak upon them. Middle Eastern and many European nations need to learn to accept the consequences of their actions and inactions, and I say let the learning begin with Iraq. In every way I can think of, this single action would benefit Americans. If in the future, Iraq poses yet another threat to the U.S. and its defense, we can always go back. ____Hopefully, the seed of democracy will grow in the middle east. Oppressive governments and dictators in that region breed hate and despair and poverty. Only a very few have all the wealth. _____

Given that action, I would put Iran on notice. The day we pull out of Iraq, our military will focus on Iran. Iran stands as a direct threat to our national dependency upon Middle Eastern oil and world economic stability. I would tell other nations in the region that if they want a crack at getting Iran to comply with world security requirements before we deal with the situation militarily, fine. If they fail, we will respond. _____Iran is much much larger than Iraq in size and population. It may not be possible for the U.S. to do in Iran what it is trying to do in Iraq. We should warn Iran that any acts of terrorism or acts of war against any other nations will result in a very strong retaliation, and I’m not talking about ground troops only._______

This is the kind of tough, responsible, and appropriate prioritization of foreign affair objectives I would like to see in return for my tax dollar. Regretfully, we seem not to have that kind of clarity and transparency of purpose at work in our government, to date.

______I wonder if anyone in government has any aptitude in mathematics and/or economics? I’m not sure any of the U.S. politicians even know how many ZEROEs there are in $8 trillion. If anyone in government had a head for numbers, they might be very alarmed. Then, perhaps they really are alarmed, but already know it’s beyond help, and they’re just biding their time, and don’t really want to address the problem, because doing so would only lose themselves votes in the next election? Let someone else be the scapegoat. The damage is already done. We may be past the point of no-return. Congress may never stop over-spending. Congress has never (in 105 years) had the discipline to start paying down the growing National Debt (now $8 trillion dollars). The National Debt is now costing tax-payers over $1 billion per day in interest, spending is acceleration and the National Debt is growing faster than ever, and despite all of this, too many people, greedily and foolishly, still believe the myth that they (everyone) can continue forever to live at the expense of the state (everyone else), which is why the politicians continue the pork-barrel spending….because the politicians are congratulated for spending (bringing home the pork), which requires more borrowing, which inspires more competition amongst the politicians to spend even more, which requires more borrowing….and so on,….and so on……and so on…..until one day, the economy implodes under the crushing debt, the interest on the debt exceeds all tax revenues, there’s no money left to loan to the government, inflation increases, some banks begin to fail and close, property values fall, many businesses start going bankrupt, poverty increases, the military becomes weaker, and our enemies celebrate the disintegration of the United Sates of America. Do not think it could not happen. It has already happened in countless nations over countless centuries, and history has a way of repeating itself over and over. It doesn’t have to happen. ________ See: NinePointPlanToFixUSA

Aldous made a point of stating that having 90% of our military in Iraq prevents Bush from invading other countries. This is the loose sort of logic that I’m getting used to from the anti-war groups. They say things like how North Korea is the real problem, insinuating that they would accept the US invading those countries, but not poor innocent Iraq. We all know the howls and protests would be immediate, though, so its basically just a bait and switch argument.

Well, Aldous’s opinion is valid and does not necessarily include the “poor innocent Iraq” characterization. The 90% number comes from the troops that are there, the troops coming back from there and the troops preparing to go there. Most uses of the overextended argument have either of two purposes: To say we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq to preserve our troop strength for clear and present dangers. Or to say we need to have a clear exit strategy from Iraq because it will presently become untenable due to what is required of the mission. I suspected Aldous’s use of the argument was to point to the former. And as I said, it’s a valid position. With 170K of troops in Iraq, would you want to commit troops to NK? Iran? Would Bush? I don’t think so. This says nothing of our viability in handling a two front war, only to the political will available.

There’s something seriously wrong with the
stated fact that 90% of all U.S. troops are Iraq.

If 90% of all U.S. troops are in Iraq, then
there is only 11,000 U.S. troops left to protect
the United States. : )
Don’t ya think that would be terribly irresponsible
for the military to leave the U.S. mainland almost
completely unprotected?

There’s something seriously wrong with these stated percentages.
____________________________________
That fact is, in 2002, there were about:
500,000 active Army
400,000 active Navy
190,000 active Marines
390,000 active Air Force
Technological advantages have allowed
those numbers to drop drastically since 1970.
_____________________________________

I don’t have recent numbers, but they’re
probably higher than those above.
Does anyone really think the military would send
90% of all U.S. military half way around the world
and leave the U.S. unprotected???.
No. The U.S. still has over about ONE million active
duty troops to protect the U.S.

NinePointPlanToFixUSA

I’m confused as to why the US still needs its nuclear arsenal, now that we’re not worried about Russia blowing up the world more times than we can. The fact that we’re not disarming, means that we can imagine a scenario in which we would use a nuke, which, to me, means that a nuke would be the only choice. Given that we control half of the world’s military force and have colossal strength by any measure, without considering WMD, can anyone really imagine that kind of scenario?

Deterrance doesn’t count against terrorists; they’re crazy, remember? And here’s a nightmare scenario for you: al Qaeda steals one of our nukes to use against us. What do we do? Who gets fired?

Meanwhile, with countries like North Korea scrutinizing our every move, what better gesture could we make than to set the example and get rid of our WMD?

OK. I could be wrong about some of the
motivations of the U.S. government in Iraq,
as much as I want to believe their intentions
are noble. Some of the reasons probably are
noble. However, the final determination
may yet to be seen.

Admittedly, this is interesting ( a link provided
by American Pundit: Oil in Iraq )
but the article may, in a few instances, be
drawing a few unfair conclusions too early.

If the U.S. fails to leave Iraq immediately after
making it secure, and if the U.S. starts stealing
oil from Iraq, then it will make it impossible
for anyone to deny that one of the U.S.’s primary
objectives was to gain control of Iraq’s oil.

I hope not, because it seems very unlikely that
the Iraqi government or Iraqi people will
tolerate the U.S. attempting to control their oil.
It’s one thing for us to help Iraq repair and
maintain their oil production and transport
facilities (as is the case now), and even buy
oil from Iraq to provide revenue to Iraq, but
it will be quite unacceptable if the U.S. attempts
to remain in Iraq and attempts to control the
oil reserves in Iraq. Not only that, but it
will horribly disgrace the U.S., coalition, and
Iraqi troops, and Iraqi police, and Iraqi people
who fought and died to liberate Iraq, firm in their
belief that they were making Iraq a better, safer,
and more free place, only to discover that Iraq has
truly been defrauded and plundered by the U.S.

Josh, the time to oppose the development of nuclear weapons was before they were developed. The Genie is out of the bottle, now. Not until China, Russia, Israel, and the other nuclear holders, all agree to dismantle concurrently would it be a reasonable risk to disarm.

Russia and China remain potential threats if they view the U.S. becoming too aggressive in the world. Note the words, “if they view”. The U.S. need not become too aggressive in its own view, or even the western world’s view, to consitute a risk of military conflict with Russia or China. China and Cuba are chumming up to each other. This is not going unnoticed by the Bush administration.

Dictator states like Pakistan remain a threat, because dictators can be overthrown and unknowns replace them.

Pakistan has a parliament-type government.
The “Head Of Government” is elected to office.
Isn’t the President (“Head of State”) also now
supposed to be elected to office in Pakistan ?

I agree about the “genie” being “out of the bottle” now,
and it is the oppressive governments and dictators that
pose the biggest danger.

But, it also seems hypocritical to forbid other nations
(especially nations that don’t have a track-record of
attacking any one else) to have nukes when we have
thousands of nukes. Perhaps some nations (excluding
sinister nations and dictators) would not feel a need
to build WMDs if they felt they could trust the world
police to protect them.

Iran is one of a few countries that may very well become a real problem.
Iran is not far (months? a few years?) from having a nuclear weapon.
Iran will then need a missile to deliver it.
As long as Iran doesn’t attack any other countries,
there is no justification to ever act against Iran.
Without justification to act against Iran,
we are creating their justification to create nukes
for defensive and deterrent purposes.

The fact is, Iran may create many nukes & missiles,
and may someday use them,
or may decide to never use them.
Other nations will eventually do the same.
There may be nothing that can be done about it.

Some day, a nuclear exchange will probably
occur between two or more nations.
Even if the world survives, it probably won’t
discourage them and other nations from building
more bigger and better WMDs.

Thus, perhaps the U.S. should focus more
on some defensive capabilities?
It’s a race that never ends. We must always stay
one step ahead of our enemies; at least,
until a day (if ever) when we have no enemies.